BY David Michael Conner

August 25 2009 11:50 PM ET

Back to your acting, you have been working on another movie ... With Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. It’s starring them. I play Katherine’s character’s coworker and best friend. It was a lot of fun. They were great people to work with. I learned so much from watching them. Everybody was so professional and friendly and cool and laid-back, and it wasn’t all crazy. I hate being in situations like -- you know what, OK, it’s not that serious!

One blogger who interviewed you gave you a hard time for saying that blogs can be unreasonably cruel to celebrities. Katherine Heigl has really been a target of a lot of celebrity bloggers. You know, with the interview that I did with the blog, it was one of those things like ...you know, let’s cut out the negativity. It’s just like the question you asked about the gay community. Just let people live. Like what if she was having a bad day one day, you know? What if ... all these different things are going on with her that she couldn’t cover, she couldn’t act for that moment? She was great to work with. I had fun. She didn’t know me from anybody. And when I walked in that makeup trailer at 7 o'clock in the morning, she was in good spirits. She was cool with me.

You have this totally positive and upbeat vibe. How do you manage all the things you work on -- the acting, the music, and you even own and operate a couple of boutiques in Houston -- and keep such a positive attitude? How? Lord, no sleep, that’s what it’s called. [Laughs] I have an amazing family. My mother runs my two boutiques in Houston and I’m very, very hands-on with it.

Being able to act and also have a music career -- it’s all about timing. You can’t always get in, and when you do get in, you can’t sit down. You sit down as much as you can, but you don’t sleep on opportunity. I’m doing what I love to do and I’m living out my dream. And I don’t take it for granted.

So what’s your next big goal? Oo-oo-ooh! I want more movies, I want more movies. I definitely want to do a foundation for young girls to empower them and ... I love going across the country on promotional tours and things like that. I make time to go to middle schools and high schools and find out what’s going on inside their minds. Things have changed and the world has changed, so I want to start a foundation, starting off in my hometown, to help young girls fulfill their dreams and not allowing society and this world, the crazy world, from holding them back from what they want to do.

“She Ain’t Got ... ” was written by Chris Brown. Did you work with him before or after the Rihanna incident? Before.

What would you say to a young girl who asked you about Brown?It’s one of those things where, if you’re in an abusive relationship or things just go bad like that, you have to use your better judgment. First of all, realizing red flags. When they’re red flags, they’re not yellow and they’re not green: a red flag is a red flag. And once you see those signs, you’ve got to pay attention. I have a lot of girls who I speak to that are with guys who are verbally abusive and they think that’s a sign of love. Or when they hit them, “Oh, that’s a sign of love and affection.” No it’s not! That’s not love. That’s not cute. And if somebody is always continuing to bring you down, that’s not the point. The person that is with you should always be bringing love.

With [Chris Brown and Rihanna’s] situation, I don’t know. I wasn’t in the car. I wasn’t nowhere near that street on that day. The Chris Brown, the person that I met, was very sweet, very kind, a professional. Even seeing them together, he was very respectful of her. He was very, very, very respectful around her, you know what I mean? So when everything happened, it was surprising to me, because I didn’t see that. But once again, I don’t know.

I hope that he seeks counseling, gets help, learns from this, and that this is something that he will never do again. I think he can come down from the cross now. Everybody has been throwing stones, stones, stones, stones, and it’s somewhere where that was a serious mistake that was made, but you’ve got to let him grow up and get past it. You’ve got to let him get out of that.

And I’m not saying it’s something that should happen tomorrow, but it’s something that happened. Things happen, and as long as he learns from it, that’s all that we can ask him to do. Who are we to judge?